


Black Water

by MaryWollstonecrafty



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Crooked Kingdom Spoilers, F/M, i love my small murder children, inej takes an unpaid internship, sturmhond takes an apprentice, whoops my hand slipped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-08-23 13:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8329267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryWollstonecrafty/pseuds/MaryWollstonecrafty
Summary: Inej needs a teacher. Sturmhond takes a student. (or Inej joins Sturmhond's crew. Adventures are had.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I could not get the line about Inej wondering what Sturmhond could teach her about being a pirate (ahem, *privateer*) out of my head. 
> 
> I don't have my book in front of me, but it was something along the lines of "she wondered what two weeks on Sturmhond's crew could teach her." (I also apologize if someone else has already written this fic, because I cannot imagine I'm the only person who was captivated by this idea) 
> 
> Basically I needed a fic about Inej and Nikolai being bros on the high seas. 
> 
> Right now I'm imagining this as a short-ish 3 or 4 parter, but I'm queen of letting my fics run away from me, so we'll see, friends, we'll see. 
> 
> (also I've missed this fandom, and Nikolai, and you. It feels good to be back.)

The ice-cold salt of the sea stung against her skin. The storm had kicked up the ocean, which was writhing like a creature underneath her. The deck of the ship rocked and roiled, pitched up and side-to-side by the black water.

Her heart beat like a drum in her chest, _alive, alive, alive,_ it seemed to chant. 

Her inky black braid whipped against the sides of her sea-kissed face. Everything stung, everything ached, and Inej welcomed it, felt truly at peace for the first time in a very long time. A dark kind of peace, the kind that came from having a soul bruised green-black, but still peace. She was not one to refuse small gifts. 

“You’re a terrible apprentice, honestly!” Sturmhond shouted at her from the starboard of deck of the Volkvony. He was wrestling with thick, salt-crusted ropes, pulling the sails in, his hair, too, whipped around his face. 

“There’s a storm on the horizon, and if I’ve taught you anything it’s that the times for meaningful contemplation are misty mornings and-“ 

“Nights with new moons.” Inej finished his sentence. 

“Ah, see you are learning something!” he laughed in open-mouthed triumph. Inej had never met someone so unabashedly full of life. His insuppressible joy might have annoyed her if she didn’t suspect it had been hard won. He didn’t say much about his past, but there were ghosts she recognized all too well behind his hazel eyes. He fought his demons with pure charisma, and who was she to judge the way anyone chose to cope, especially when he was so clearly winning. 

And then there were the gloves he always wore. They reminded her of Kaz in a way that made her heart ache and swell. They also made her laugh to herself, _what was it about these boys and their gloves._            

She’d been on Sturmhond’s crew for two weeks now, and out of Ketterdam for nearly six months. She spent the first three months of her freedom in Os Alta with her parents, basking in the warmth of their caravan, drinking tea and getting to know them again. The peace left her restless, though, and she knew too well there was a broken world out there waiting for her to fix it. She stopped sleeping at night, thinking of all the stolen girls who had not yet been returned to their homes. Her parents understood. Their eyes filled with tears as she left them, but they understood. 

They also understood why, even in her self-imposed exile, she spent everyday training, by herself and with the Suli children who followed her like tiny flitting shadows. They understood why she taught them to throw knives and punches and fight like hell. It broke their hearts, but they understood. 

Inej returned to Ketterdam with peace in her heart and fury in her veins. 

She spent the next two months learning how to sail. 

At the knee of grizzled Kerch sailors she learned knots, and tricks, and how not to sink. She’d even learned how to fire and aim her little cannon. Oh how she loved that cannon. She’d spent two months learning how to be a sailor, now all she'd needed was someone to teach her how to be a pirate.

Kaz hadn’t seemed surprised when she’d asked him to contact Sturmhond on her behalf. He’d written the letter on thick parchment, sealed with black wax and the seal of the Dregs. Their reply came two weeks later, a letter with instructions to meet Sturmhond at a dock in Ravka and not much else. He hadn’t even signed it. It was, however, sealed with pale blue wax stamped with the Lantsov double eagle. She wondered if the young pirate was mocking the crown. She wondered how he’d stolen the seal. Perhaps he had a wraith of his own.

With their mutual appreciation for well-tailored suits and love of pointed thievery, she thought he and Kaz might make excellent friends, if friends were the kind of thing Kaz was interested in. 

She packed her knives and prepared for the journey. 

She and Kaz almost held hands on the way to the docks. They were learning each other in fits and starts, and it hurt like growing pains.

Kaz Brekker the boy, not the Barrel boss, brushed his knuckles against hers as he bid her goodbye. His dark eyes flitted to her lips, but he did not move in. 

“Tell him hello for me. Tell him I have a card table in Crow Club waiting for him whenever he wants to visit,” He said. 

Inej did not respond, just brushed an errant lock of ink-black hair out of his eyes. He did not recoil at her touch. 

They were learning. 

She was half way down the dock when she heard him say “no mourners.” 

She smiled to herself, and whipped around to face him, her dark hood sliding off her head. “No funerals.” 

And she swore she almost saw Kaz Brekker smile. 

\-- 

Sturmhond met her at the docks in Os Alta as promised, a cap pulled low over his sandy hair, an easy smile playing on his lips. “Wraith.” He tipped his chin. 

“Privateer.” She greeted him in turn. 

Sturmhond was an affable teacher, nothing at all like the girls who had taught her to survive in the Menagerie, nor the boys who had taught her to fight in alleyways in the Barrel. The rules were similar “ _Get knocked down, get back up, don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to, work hard, know your place_ ” But unlike the Barrel there were no threats. Everyone on this ship was here simply because they wanted to be, Sturmhond most of all. She was free to leave at any moment, and she was free to choose exactly how much she wanted to learn.

She wanted to learn everything. 

So, she spent her days rubbing her hands to blisters tying up ropes, looking over maps, climbing up and down the masts, keeping watch. 

The other sailors on the boat nicknamed her “the crow” because of all the time she spent up in the crow’s nest, poised like a baby bird about to take flight. 

These men did not know about the Dregs or the barrel clubs or the tattoos on her friends’ biceps back home. But even here, she was still a crow. There were some things that she was never going to escape. Some things she didn’t want to, it seemed. 

She was lolling in the nest one day after adjusting the sails to pick up a northern wind, eighteen days into her training, when Sturmhond called up to her with a border-line offensive “ _cackaw_!” 

“Is that supposed to be a summons?” she shouted back down to him. 

“I apologize, my Corvidae is rusty!” He shouted back. His fine white shirt bellowed in the wind, and he raised a gloved hand to shield his eyes from the sun as he looked up at her. 

After eighteen days on his ship, she knew full well he wasn’t whom he claimed to be. There was no way this boy was a simple Ravkan sailor with a fondness for engineering. He was a Lord’s son at the very least. Maybe he ran away like Wylan. She also knew she didn’t particularly care to know. She trusted him enough to know he’d tell her if it were ever necessary, and unlike Kaz, she’d never had much interest in dealing in secrets.  

She slid down the mast like hot butter in a pan, and landed on the deck without a sound. 

She was standing toe-to-toe with Sturmhond, and although he wasn’t as tall as Kaz, he was solid, built like a brick wall. If brick walls had an affection for flashy watches. 

He peered down at her, looking like he wanted to say something, but then shook his head and walked towards the ship railings, gazing out on the horizon. 

She joined him. 

“We’re going to Fjerda,” he spoke after a beat. 

A chill went down her spine. “Why Fjerda?” 

“Your friend needs a ride.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so glad people seem to be enjoying this! I could write about these murderous children forever. 
> 
> Also, because I forgot to tell you last time, the title is from the song "Black Water" by Of Monsters and Men. Not that it is even particularly thematically relevant to this fic. I've just been listening to that album a lot lately. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy chapter 2!
> 
> note: the lovely ntlpurpolia pointed out to me in the comments that Matthias's parents are dead in the novel, sorry for the canon divergence!

The shores of Fjerda were a white so bright it was blinding. The kind of white that hurt to look at. Dotted with skeletal pines reaching up towards the heavens, the shores of Fjerda made Inej’s heart pound in her chest.

She never wanted to come back to this place.

But somewhere in that icy wasteland her best friend was waiting for her, and her fear was a thing to be kept on a leash. So she pressed ahead, pulling the sails, and directing their ship towards the shores.

Sturmhond was letting her captain the ship. He said learning how to enter a country without being detected was one of the most important skills a privateer could learn. He then made some quip under his breath about how much easier it would be to enter via airship, but he was such a generous teacher he wasn’t going to take a learning opportunity away from her.

She navigated the hulking ship through iceberg fields and around the barren islets that dotted the coast.

When she had first started sailing she felt as if she was pulling and wrestling the ships into submission. Sturmhond had taught her it was much more like leading a partner in a dance. Inej was not so good a wrestling, but dancing, dancing she could do.

The ship yielded to her lead, and the crew held their collective breath as she lead them around obstacle after obstacle. When they reached the part of the coast, hidden from watches by a peninsula of towering pines, where they had planned to drop anchor, the crew cheered for her in jubilant whoops and hollers.

Sturmhond clapped her on the back with a “nicely done” and a wholly unnecessary waggle of his eyebrows.

Inej simply took a deep breath and thanked her saints for their guidance.

She insisted on dropping the anchor herself.

She had always been strong, but in a lithe sort of way. Sailing was changing her body, her clothes were getting too snug around her new muscles, but she relished it. Like Nina, she would never apologize for taking up space.  
  
Inej, Sturmhond, and the crew ate a dinner of pickled herring. “Get it, because we’re in Fjerda! It’s thematic!” Sturmhond exclaimed, in a joke that only he found funny.

After dinner he rose from the table, extending a hand to Inej without a word. The rest of the crew didn’t know why they were in Fjerda, nor did they want to, it seemed. Wordless communication was the norm between them as of late, so she rose silently and followed him to his quarters.

Like the rest of him, his quarters were extravagant to the point of absurdity. Draped in dark blue velvets, and light blue carpets, it looked like the room of a Lantsov Prince. Before she could take in the opulence in all its glory, he shut the door tightly behind them and pulled his shirt over his head.

Inej jumped back with a start, “I- Kaz- we’re- I’m not-“ She tripped over the words. Truth was, she didn’t quite know what she and Kaz were but she couldn’t imagine he’d take too kindly to this.

Sturmhond barked out a laugh, “Trust me, Brekker isn’t someone I’m too inclined to cross.”

He reached out and threw open the ornately carved wardrobe next to him. He begun pulling out furs, sweaters and flannels. “I’m not trying to seduce you, no matter how beguiling your work with the sails is, Inej.” He laughed good-naturedly, pulling a knotty knit sweater over his curls. “I’m trying to get us dressed.”

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment, but she tried not to show it. Sturmhond flirted with everyone, Saints, she’d even seen him try to flirt the riggings into submission. She should have known he was all talk.

He looked her over, raising a gloved hand to his mouth. It was his thinking face. She suspected he’d been a nail biter before the gloves, and the tick had never quite gone away.

“We’ll need to cover your hair…” He said, digging through a hatbox at the bottom of the closet. _Of course he had a hatbox._ He pulled out a fur monstrosity and carried it over to her.

“Can I?” he asked, she nodded wordlessly. He took her braid in his hands, and quickly wound it into a bun at the back of her head, and stuck the fur hood on over it.

“Your dark hair will stand out if anyone sees us. Blending in is our best course of action.”

He tossed her sweaters and stockings and a woolen skirt, and she shed her simple sailor’s clothing and put them on. He didn’t look, didn’t even glance at her exposed body. But he was so determinedly casual about his lack of glances, that she knew it wasn’t incidental at all.

For a pirate, Sturmhond was perhaps the most deliberately respectful man she’d ever met. She found herself growing quite fond of him.

Wrapped in so many layers, the two of them were nearly unrecognizable, the crew lowered them in a tiny wooden rowboat, and into the black Northern Sea.

Silently they rowed, the only sound the slapping of their oars against the icy water.

The night was dark as spilled ink, a New Moon, Inej realized with a dark laugh to herself. Perfect for meaningful contemplation.

Across her, Sturmhond was chewing on his lower lip, the kind of tick he let slip when he didn’t think others were watching him. Having some meaningful contemplation too, it seemed.

Inej’s arms were burning by the time they reach the rocky shore.

“What next?” she turned to ask Sturmhond.

“Follow me.” He said quietly. She could tell this place made him nervous, he wanted to be here perhaps less than she did.

Not that she wasn’t happy to be fetching Nina, in fact her heart ached when she thought of her friend, and couldn’t wait to hug her again. But Fjerda, this place, it set her teeth on edge. The ice seemed to reach straight down into her bones.

Sturmhond pulled the rowboat up on the shore, and hid it among a weathered pile of other discarded shipping materials, they were not the only ones who used this bay, it appeared.

He beckoned her with a raise of his gloved hand, and she followed him in silence up the shore, the sound of the waves breaking behind them. The cold bit at her face, and she was grateful for the silly hat he’d insisted she wear.

He lead them up the rocky shore to a lighthouse that looked abandoned, sitting just beyond a windswept dune.

He wrapped sharply on the door six times, and after a moment of heavy silence, the weather-beaten door creaked open just wide enough for a human body to slip through.

Sturmhond squeezed inside, Inej followed.

The inside of the bottom floor of the lighthouse was dark and damp, before Inej could orient herself to her surroundings; she was wrapped in a tight hug.

Even here, Nina smelled like vanilla frosting.

“You’re here!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Saints, I’ve missed you,” she sighed.

“Here, come on, come on, it’s warmer upstairs.”

She beckoned Sturmhond and Inej to follow her up the iron spiral staircase to the top of the lighthouse.

It was warmer up here, a fire set the round room aglow in orange light, a kettle sat steaming on the small stove, and the stone floors were covered in a mismatch of ornate rugs.

Inej hadn’t seen her best friend in six months, and being here with her again felt like having a limb reattached.

She took Nina in, to assess how worried she should be about her. She had lost so much, and although it was clear she was changed, how could she not be, she looked like herself, which was to say full of life.

She was too thin still, her hair had been tailored an icy blonde, and her skin was a little sallow, but her eyes were bright. She had already fetched them tea and a plate of cookies, which was also a good sign.

“How was your trip?” She asked the two of them gesturing for Inej to sit next to her on a warn love seat. Sturmhond took the armchair positioned in front of the fire, and extended his hands in front of the fire, stretching out his fingers.

“It works better if you take the gloves off,” Nina said with a laugh in her voice. God Inej loved her voice, she hadn’t realized just how much she’d missed her until she was here with her again.

Sturmhond replied with a vulgar gesture involving a single gloved finger.

“Just like Kaz.” Nina said with a roll of her eyes.

“Insufferable.” Inej agreed with a nod of her head.

Nina leaned forward and poured them all a cup of tea. Inej took hers gratefully, letting the cup leech warmth into her frozen fingers.

After a moment, she leaned her head down on her friend’s shoulder and asked.

“What happened, Nina?”

Nina took a deep breath and began to speak.

“I left Ketterdam with the Triumvirate. Zoya, Genya, and I snuck into Ketterdam through the Northern boarder of Ravka. We kept his body in a sled-“ her eyes filled with tears at the memory, and she let them fall, didn’t bother to brush them away.

She took a shaky breath and returned to her story.

“It took us a week to reach his town. We knew we had to bury him soon, the body- Anyway, we made it to _Tjloka_ , near the coast, Genya tailored us to look like locals, but our Fjerdan was rudimentary so staying too long was dangerous. They don’t like strangers.” She said darkly.

“I buried him on a hill overlooking the sea. The ground was so icy, I had to dig all night. My hands are still scarred from the blisters I got.” She said running a thumb over the scarred heels of her hands.

Inej leaned into her friend once more, tears streaming down her own cheeks, but she didn’t say a word as Nina paused, just let the heavy warm silence hang.

“I said goodbye to him. I marked his grave with a stone that I chiseled our initials into. He’d probably hate that.” She said with a sad laugh.

“We stayed for two more days. I found his house, a little cottage with a red door on the edge of town just like he’d described.” She raked an anguished hand through her hair and looked up at the sky. “His dad looked just like him…looked like he would have if he’d been given a chance to grow up.”

The tears were coming quickly now, soaking the front of her woolen sweater.

“And, and his mother was beautiful and he had a little sister who was working in the garden, and I couldn’t even introduce myself. I couldn't tell them how their son had died, that he had been a good man- that I had loved him. Because they’d have hated me.”

She was sobbing outright now, in a torrent that made Inej suspect it was the first time she’d let herself fall apart since his death. Inej rubbed her friend’s back in slow circles, aching at what little comfort she could provide. She couldn’t stop her friend from hurting no matter how badly she wanted to make everything better.

Nina took a deep breath and continued. “But I couldn’t leave them knowing nothing, it isn’t what he would have wanted. So I wrote them a letter, in the best Fjerdan I could manage, telling them what I could. What I think he would have wanted them to have known. I told them that their son was a good man, and a hero, and that I loved him, and I left it on their doorstep in the middle of the night and left.”

“That was almost six months ago” Inej spoke finally. “What have you been doing since?”

Nina shook her blonde head a little, as if coming back to herself.

“Helping Zoya, mostly. Doing the same work we were doing before, tracking down imprisoned Grisha, and identifying and helping the ones still in the villages before they’re found out. There’s also some secretive mission straight from the crown apparently.” Nina said with a wave of her hand, rolling her eyes. She was obviously not impressed.

“Zoya can’t tell me much. I’m looking for a dead man whom the King suspects isn’t dead at all.” She said in a mocking voice, like a child telling a ghost story around the campfire.

Across from them, Sturmhond stirred, leaning forward to pour himself a second cup of tea.

“I’m supposed to report any suspicious information I get back to Zoya, but since I don’t know what I’m looking for, I fear I haven’t been a particularly effective secret agent. I know all the hottest neighborhood gossip though, so if the king has any particular interest in who Ebba Nilsson ran away with, I’ve got him covered. It was Lukas Karlsson, the butcher’s son, by the way. Big scandal.”

“I’d say.” Inej agreed with a laugh. Nina was hurting, but she was going to be okay. She was going to be okay.

Sturmhond cleared this throat. “As lovely as this has been, what do you say we get out of this god forsaken country.”

Nina sprung up from couch, wiping the remaining tears from her swollen face. “It’s like you read my mind.”

It only took her a minute to gather her belongings into a worn traveling sack. She placed the tin of cookies in last, right on top.

She extinguished the fire, and made it down the spiral staircase more quickly than Inej had ever seen Nina get ready for anything.

She understood, Matthias had loved this place, and for that reason it would always be special, but for Nina this place was death. Her death, his death, the death of her people. Inej couldn’t blame her for being so eager to leave.

They made it down the dunes and to the hidden rowboat in silence, save for Nina jabbing Inej in the ribs with an elbow and muttering, “ _he’s cute_ ,” when she thought Sturmhond was too far away to hear. Inej responded with a roll of her eyes.

When finally back on the ship, Inej took Nina straight to the galley to make her the best meal she could muster given their sorry supplies. Nina ate all of her mediocre sandwich though, and Inej was once again relieved.

\--

Later that night, when Inej and Nina were snuggled up together in Inej’s bed, Inej’s voice broke through the silence.

“I’m glad you’re back.”

“Me too,” Nina replied with a contented sigh.

“He’s watching over you, you know,” Inej said after a moment.

“I know,” Nina replied, voice heavy.

“Where are we taking you next?” Inej asked.

“Back to Ravka. Zoya is waiting for me in some tiny town. Keramzin I think? Sturmhond said he had old friends there and volunteered to take me.”

“You can come back to Ketterdam, you know,” Inej said.

“There’s nothing there for me.”

“You know I still had to say it.”

“Maybe eventually,” she sighed. Inej could tell she was getting sleepy.

“There’s always a place for you on my crew.”

“You know, I think I’d make a rather fetching pirate.”

“Privateer,” Inej corrected her.

“So let’s get to the important stuff. You and Kaz kiss yet?” Nina asked with a laugh.

Inej snorted. “Goodnight Nina.”

“Come on!”

“ _Goodnight Nina_.”

Inej rolled over, and extinguished her bedside candle with a huff, grateful to have her best friend beside her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Sorry for the delay in getting this posted! I've had the most fun writing this, and I cannot thank you enough for all of your incredible feedback. 
> 
> I'm going to apologize in advance for the tiny cannon errors I'm sure I made in this. I couldn't for the life of me remember if Keramzin was the name of the town Alina grew up in, or if it was the name of the orphanage. I don't have my books with me at school, so I went with the name of the town, but a thousand apologies if I messed up. 
> 
> I love you all like Nina loves cake, Inej loves a well sharpened knife, and Kaz loves revenge.

Keramzin was a tiny town, bathed in buttery sunlight and covered in pines. It was a town that felt as if it had been asleep for a thousand years, and had no intention of waking up soon. 

It had taken two days for Sturmhond, Nina and Inej to make it from a port in Northern Ravka, just across the Fjerdan border, in a non-descript black carriage. Two days of Inej rolling her eyes while Sturmhond and Nina bickered about whatever they could find to bicker about. Everything from the proper role of Grisha in the Second Army, to the appropriate way to tie a cravat, to the best dessert served in the Little Palace (Sturmhond said lemon tarts, Nina insisted the chocolate tort.) Inej snorted a laugh at the last one, but only because Sturmhond’s carefully constructed mask was slipping. If he was on his guard he would have never let it slip that he had ever been to the Little Palace.

He had to be a Squaller, then. Not that she cared. 

\--

On the outskirts of Keramzin stood a building, built of warm wood, punctuated with a cluster of small onion domes on the roof. It was beautiful, in a homey sort of way. It looked like the sort of place a lost princess would have grown up.

A dozen bright-eyed children ran up to meet them in the circular gravel driveway the moment they pulled up. The hugged at Inej’s legs and grabbed on to her hands, pulling her inside, like they’d all been best friends their whole lives. They had the kind of trust only children who’d never been hurt had, and it made Inej’s heart swell.

Waiting in the doorway was a woman haloed in soft afternoon light, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her simple grey dress.

At first Inej mistook her for an old woman, as her hair was snow-white, but once she got closer she realized with a start the woman couldn’t have been older than 22 or 23. 

“Sturmhond,” she greeted her apparent old friend warmly. The name sounded foreign on her tongue, as if she was conscious of not calling by his real name. His mask was slipping, but not enough to reveal his true name to them. Inej understood, and if anything she admired his commitment. 

“Aleksandra.” He greeted her in turn, pulling her into a tight hug. She wasn’t a casual friend, or a contact, or a business acquaintance, then. They were best friends. 

Her name, too, was foreign on his tongue. This intrigued Inej more. She wondered what cause the mistress of an orphanage might have to hide her true name. 

“Aleksandra, these are my friends Nina and Inej.” Sturmhond said to the woman. 

“You’ve never brought friends before.” 

“Yes, but I think these two you’ll really like.” He said with a wink.

 She rolled her eyes at him. 

“I have no doubt.” She said, unconvincingly. “Come in, come in” she beckoned them, before calling back over her shoulder to the children, “back to lessons!” who obeyed, running off in a flash. 

She led the three of them into a sweeping foyer, littered with children’s shoes and toys and coats. 

“Sorry about all this,” she said with a laugh in her voice that made it sound like she wasn’t sorry at all.

“Oh, darling, I know how much effort you always put into impressing me.” Sturmhond replied. 

This time it was Inej who rolled her eyes. He was incorrigible. 

The massive house was newly built, which surprised Inej, as it had the look of something ancient. But the smell of fresh cut cedar was still present, the paint wasn’t chipped, and the rugs and furniture were all brand new. It had the look of a place well lived in, the children had certainly done their best to wear the place in, but there was no mistaking its strange newness. 

There was so much strangeness about the otherworldly white-haired woman and her orphanage. Inej was itching to climb the staircase and riffle through some drawers upstairs, or to disappear behind a curtain and overhear a conversation. But she suppressed her wraith-like instincts and reminded herself she was here as a guest. 

Before Inej could make it a step further into the house, a vice-like grip wound itself around her wrist, and yanked her backwards. She whipped around, instincts singing, ready to throw a punch, but instead she saw Nina. Her brown eyes were as big as saucers, her breathing was a little ragged, despite her obvious efforts to control it. 

She was already pulling Inej back through the entryway towards the door. Inej’s heart picked up. It wasn’t like Nina to get spooked like this. What could she have possibly seen, to have her bolting out the door like she’d just seen a ghost. 

Sturmhond whipped his head around to face them, his eyebrows arched in a question. 

“I forgot something in the carriage, be right back!” Nina called, though her voice broke a little.

She all but ran out the door, dragging Inej behind her. 

She hopped into the carriage, closed the door tightly shut, and leaned down, balancing her elbows on her knees, holding her head in her hands. Still, her attempts to steady her breathing were in vain. 

“Nina, Nina, please. Take a breath. What happened? What did you see.” Inej said softly. 

Nina tilted her head to look up at her friend, her eyes full of some combination of shock, terror and awe. 

“I thought she was dead.” She choked out. 

“Who, Nina?”

“ _Alina Starkov._ ” 

Inej’s heart hammered in her chest. 

“Alina Starkov _is_ dead.”

“Then explain to me what she’s doing inside with Nikolai.” Nina breathed. 

“With _who_?” Inej asked, feeling her world slip off its axis.

Nina raked a hand through her dark hair. “I should have told you sooner. I thought maybe you’d figured it out yourself. I didn’t want to make things strange. I-“ 

“Nina.” Inej said sharply.

Nina took a steadying breath. 

“I recognized him the moment I saw him in the lighthouse. It’s been a few years, but he looks the same. We were all together at the Little Palace.”

“Nina, please just tell me whatever it is you’re trying to say."

“Sturmhond is King Nikolai Lantsov.” 

This time it was Inej who laid her head in her hands. The carriage walls were spinning around her. The air in there was too thin, too hot.

Once, when she was seven, she’d try to do a flip on the tightrope. She’d long been able to do one on the ground, and despite her parents' caution, she was convinced she could land one on the wire. The flip was off from the first moment. The world tilted and shifted all funny when she was upside down, so high up in the air, all she could see around her was blinding blue sky, and she had no idea where her body was in space. Instead of landing one the wire, her feet slipped through the air, and then there was the _falling, falling, falling_.

This moment felt something like that. 

In a broken voice she whispered, “does Kaz know?” She didn’t need Nina’s nod in confirmation. Of course Kaz knew. As if Kaz would ever do business with anyone he didn’t know every worldly detail about. 

A smaller, kinder part of her brain whispered, _as if he would have sent you off on a stranger’s ship alone.  
_

He brain reeled, attempting to rearrange the puzzle pieces of Sturmhond’s existence into the shape of King Nikolai. 

He was her friend, her teacher. He was the head of a country that had marginalized and mistreated her people for hundreds of years. 

And then there was Alina Starkov, _Sankta Alina,_ whose visage was on the knife strapped to her leg right at this very moment. 

She had been blessed by the gods, then martyred to save the world.

Except she hadn’t been, and she was just a girl, very much alive, and wearing a grey peasant’s dress one-hundred feet away.

Inej did not yet have the emotional fortitude to examine what this meant about her gods and her saints. 

All she could manage to say was “they’ll be wondering where we are.” 

Nina nodded. “Are you okay?"

“No.” Inej said. “Are you?” 

Nina laughed a sad laugh. “Oh god, no, almost never.”

They stepped out of the carriage, steeled themselves, and returned inside. 

\--

“Sorry about that!” Nina trilled as they stepped back into the cavernous common room. But it didn’t appear that anyone was particularly troubled by their absence. 

Alina or Aleksandra or whoever she was, was kneeling down, helping a wide-eyed toddler tie his shoe, and Sturmhond was in the corner enthusiastically play-sword fighting with a paper-crown-wearing boy of about ten. 

The boy lunged at Sturmhond and poked him in the stomach with the tip of his wooden sword. 

“Ah, no! He’s got me!” Sturmhond yelled as he tumbled dramatically to the ground, clutching his imaginary stomach wound. 

“Curse you, Misha Oretsev! Curse youuuuuu,” he cried. 

The little boy’s laughter echoed throughout the room, and Nina’s giggle joined his at Sturmhond’s show.

“But wait!” he cried from where he lay sprawled out on the carpet. He lifted his gaze to Nina.

“Is that an angel? Come down from heaven to save me?”

“No!” the boy, Misha cried. “A healer, she’s a Grisha!” 

“A Grisha you say?” Sturmhond asked the boy. 

Nina laughed and rolled her eyes at her sudden inclusion in their game. “Yes, but not one from heaven I’m afraid.”

From down on the floor Sturmhond winked at her. “You had me fooled.”

“Fix him, fix him!” The boy cried.

Nina paused for a second, an indescribably sad look flashing across her face, before she put on a broad smile and faced the boy. 

“I suppose I can help, if my king demands it.” 

“I do! I demand it,” the boy said, jumping up and down all the while. 

Nina knelt down slowly to the carpet, where Sturmhond was now doing an impressive imitation of a death rattle.

She placed her hands tenderly on the spot of his imaginary stomach wound and held them there for a moment. 

“There, healed!” She declared, springing back up to her feet. Inej wondered if the others noticed how glassy her eyes had become.

Sturmhond’s eyes popped back open, and he extended a hand to Nina who hauled him up off the floor. 

“It’s a miracle!” he exclaimed. 

Just then, a tall, impossibly handsome man appeared in the doorway. 

“And what’s going on here?” He asked in a deep baritone 

“Your son just tried to murder me.” Nikolaid said. 

“Again?” the handsome man asked. 

“Hey, did you tell him I tried to save you? Tell him I saved you, Niky!” Misha shouted.

“And then he saved me.” Sturmhond conceded.

“Ahhh, so not entirely a bad egg it appears.” The man said, laughing. He walked over to the boy and picked him up, throwing him over his shoulder. The boy’s hysterical laughter bounced off the walls, and Inej’s heart felt warm at the scene. 

Her Sankta was surrounded by laughter and love. It was a peace hard-won, but deserved. The gods had been merciful. 

Nikolai took advantage of the chaos to saddle up beside where she stood against the wall. He leaned over and said to her softly. 

“Are you okay?” 

“Nina just told me.” 

He smiled to himself. “I thought for sure Brekker had told you ages ago.”

“He’s not in the business of telling other people’s secrets.”

“I like that Brekker of yours.” He replied. “Does it change things?”

“How could it not?" 

“I suppose that’s true. We can talk about it later.” He sounded strangely sad. 

Inej reached over and squeezed his hand.

“You’re still my friend. And I’m still not calling you ‘your majesty.’”

He laughed. “Then I’ll just have to have you arrested for disrespect to the crown.” 

She punched him in the arm. 

“And assault!” 

She laughed and rolled her eyes and began to walk away, but he reached out to stop her. He still did not touch her, just brushed the fabric of her cloak. 

She turned to face him, and saw his eyes had gone serious. “You won’t tell anyone about Alina.” 

“I’m not really in the habit of telling other people’s secrets either.” 

He smiled and gave her a curt nod, as they walked back to join the group. 

Nina had been over taken by a pack of three-year-olds, and was wrestling with them on the ground. The three-year-olds appeared to be winning. 

Inej pretended not to notice the light in Nikolai’s eyes as he gazed at her in wonder. 

\-- 

They had a perfectly pleasant lunch, which was strange in that it was pleasant.

Inej would never get used to a Saint and a King asking her about her family, or her life in Ketterdam. 

When Nikolai told Alina why Inej was training with him, her eyes lit up. 

“Give ‘em hell.” She turned to say to Inej.

“I plan on it.” She replied.

Zoya and Genya burst in halfway into lunch, exhausted, with children tugging at their sleeves. 

“These hellions are worse than the Fjerdans.” Zoya declared, sitting down, serving herself a heaping plate of food. 

“Where have you two been?” Nina asked them.

“When we’re here visiting we volunteer teaching the children.” Genya explained.

“More like we’re forced to teach the children.” Zoya muttered. 

Alina shot her a look, and Zoya rolled her eyes, and the three old friends shared a laugh. 

All Inej could think, was that the artists who depicted Sankta Alina’s image on her knives had gotten her nose all wrong.

The handsome man, Mal, was his name, gazed at her saint in reverence and love so evident it was almost holy.

She brushed away the bigger questions tugging at her brain for another time, and let the love in the house warm her heart and wrap itself around her like an embrace.

\-- 

Inej, was to stay the night in Keramzin, then take a carriage to Os Alta with Nikolai in the morning. From there she’d hop on a ship and return to Ketterdam alone. Her ship was waiting for her, and Kaz and Jesper had been keeping themselves busy finding her a worthy crew. 

Nina would stay here for a few more days with Zoya and Genya before returning with them to the Little Palace where she would continue with the work she was doing before Matthais, and Ketterdam, and all of them. 

Most of the bedrooms in the Keramzin house were occupied with bunk-beds and children. Zoya, Genya and Nina were occupying one guest room, and Nikolai had the other, so Inej offered to sleep on one of the well worn couches in the common-room. After weeks sleeping on a ship, even a sofa felt luxurious.

She was awakened well after midnight by two low voices, floating across the house. Too sleepy to suppress her more spider-like instincts, and too intrigued by all the strangeness contained in the house to ignore it, she slid off the couch, barefoot, and followed the voices. 

The dark house felt like a living creature, heavy, warm and deeply asleep. Dying embers flickered in the grate of the fireplace, and Inej moved like a shadow through rooms and down dark corridors. 

She padded her way through hallways, until she came upon a massive glass atrium, filled with starlight and sparkling like a snow globe.

Illuminated in front of a low fire were two sitting figures. It took her a moment to recognize them as Nina and Nikolai. Nikolai’s hair was messy and standing up at all sorts of funny angles, and Nina’s was slung in a loose brain over her shoulder. She was wrapped in an over-sized sweater Inej recognized as belonging to Nikolai. She’d seen him wear it on the deck of the ship on more than one occasion. 

They were huddled together in deep conversation. They both looked so much younger in the moonlight. 

Inej was so focused on their faces, it took her a moment to realize that Nikolai wasn’t wearing his gloves. 

Nina leaned in and brushed her pale hand across his fingers, which even from far away, Inej could see were discolored. Dark from the fingertips to the third knuckle, like they’d been dipped in an inkwell one by one.

Inej’s blood ran cold, only something truly dark could have done that, something cursed.

Nikolai raised his eyes up to meet Nina’s. Inej could tell Nina was holding her breath. 

The logical part of Inej’s brain urged her to turn away, and let her friends have their peace. She knew she shouldn’t be watching a moment so intimate, but she could not make herself look away.

It was not that she’d never watched intimate moments before. From Ketterdam rooftops, and perched on storm drains, she’d watched businessmen meet with mistresses, and bored housewives visit their lovers in The Barrel. But those moments felt nothing like this. 

This felt like something growing. It was so violently real, Inej felt as if she was watching some raw, unfiltered truth of what it meant to be human play out in front of her in real time.

Or maybe she was just happy for her friends. She did not understand why her heart was hammering in her chest. 

Nikolai leaned in. Nina bit her lower lip. Inej wondered what it would feel like to want to be touched, to live without shame. 

Her mind flashed to that day in the hotel bathroom with Kaz. She remembered what the cool porcelain of the sink felt like under her hands. She wondered what he’d make of all this. 

Nikolai closed in; his lips brushing against Nina’s like a question. He pulled back, his eyes full of awe. Nina said something, then closed the distance between them once more. 

Inej tore herself away, a small smile playing on her lips.

This was a foregone conclusion. She was a fool to think Nina would ever have ended up anything other than a queen.

\-- 

The next morning at breakfast Nina and Nikolai held hands under the table, and everyone was polite enough to pretend as if they didn’t notice. 

Inej bade goodbye to Nina with tight hug and whispered in her ear that she had to promise to write. 

Nina promised. 

She made Inej promise to come back to Os Alta and visit her at the Little Palace. 

Inej promised.

Alina stood in the doorway, haloed in light, children at her feet, and waved them off as their carriage pulled away. Inej thought to herself, how wonderful it was that, despite everything, life was still so full of magic. 

\-- 

Somewhere between Keramzin and Ekatrinsburg Inej turned to Nikolai.

“So, the king then.” She said.

He snorted. “If it helps, I find it just as ridiculous.” 

“I have a bone or two to pick with you.” 

“I’m sorry about lying. I’m trying to keep my country safe.”

This time it was Inej that snorted. “You think I care about the lying? I’m a member of the Dregs.” She laughed. “I understand, perhaps better than most, we do what we have to.” 

He nodded. “Thank you.” 

“I’m mad about the treatment of the Suli people by the nation of Ravka.”

He turned to her, and looked her right in the eyes. 

“You don’t know what I’d give to have my court made up with people who have half of your conviction.” 

She glared at him. “I’m not looking for compliments.” 

“I know you’re not.” He stated plainly. “Tell me more about the Suli. Tell me what I can do.” 

And so she did. They spent hours in the carriage talking through the sins of the past and what Ravka’s responsibilities should be moving forward. 

By the time they reached Os Alta, she’d gotten him to agree to give the Suli full protection under Ravkan law, to stop police harassment, and to work over the next ten years to develop infrastructure to ensure her transient community had access to the services they desperately need. 

As they pulled into the port he asked her, “what else can I do for you, Inej Ghafa.” 

“I’m glad you asked.” She stated, as she sat tall up in her seat.

“I need a promise that, should the time ever come that I am arrested for piracy, I am granted full immunity under Ravkan law.”

He nodded his head. “I’ll do you one better. King Nikolai promises you full immunity. Sturmhond promises to break you out of any Fjerdan prisons you might find your way into.”

She laughed. “You’ll have to beat Kaz there first.”

He sighed. “I am awfully glad to have gotten to know you.” 

She smiled and replied. “You as well.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d made a friend out of anything other than necessity, and here she was doing something entirely for herself, with a new friend by her side. 

She slid out of the carriage, and slung her rucksack over her shoulder.

“One more thing,” she called to him before the driver shut the carriage door.

“You have to promise me to do better. Track down the traffickers and the slavers on your end as well. No one cared when I went missing. You could create real change if you wanted. _You have to do better._ ” 

She hated how much it sounded like she was begging him.

She’d had the conversation with him once before, when he was just Sturmhond. She begged him to not leave her alone, the only anti-slave ship enforcer on the high seas. He’d said he’d do his best. 

Now she knew he was the king, things were different. 

For a moment, he looked deeply ashamed of himself. 

“I know. I promise I will. And if you ever feel like taking up a post with the Ravkan Royal navy, I promise to give you a fleet of ships, yours to command.”

He sounded like he meant it. She laughed at the thought of herself in a Ravkan Navy uniform, close personal friend of the King.

What a strange life this was turning out to be. 

“I’ll think on it.” She said.

“Good.”

She turned away, without another word.

She heard the reigns of the carriage jangle, and the horses trot away behind her.

She knew somewhere deep in her bones this was not the end of her journey with Nikolai. 

\-- 

Inej felt deeply at peace as she boarded the passenger ship bound for Ketterdam. 

Her veins thrummed at the idea of seeing Kaz again, and her heart pounded at the thought of getting back on her own ship. 

She ship pulled out of port. Beneath her, the black water carried her home. 

 

She took a deep breath, and prepared to begin again.

 


End file.
